Chapter 920: Fruitful Reaping: Zero Casualties

[Okay, just need to sap out the rest of the "Wrath" and replaced it with a touch of "Patience" and "Diligence", and...presto! Only took me about an hour, but still...]

...

"Ya know...a part of me is a little hurt that my own son thought to tell me his secrets after his girlfriends, but..."

"Can’t judge because you did the same with Lady Daria and Patriarch Zhen Shi?"

"More or less, father was little taken aback that I was dating a Stampeding Bison woman as opposed to a Roaring Tider."

"Ah."

"BAH!"

"Xiao Liu!"

"You’re awake!"

[Fixed him.]

"What’s going on?! Where’s the monkey?! Is everyone...when did I get placed on to this fuzzy blanket?"

"Figured it’d be softer than the ground," Rianna stated. "It’s also my first attempt at sewing, so what do you think?"

"It’s nice."

Smug face noises.

"Wait a minute..."

It took Zhen Liu a couple of moments, but as stared at his father and lovers sitting on what appeared to be a picnic blanket together, alongside the captured SATAN Monkey and Spring Brawler, he realized something was weird...but he couldn’t figure out what.

His father appeared to be healthy, Jin Fang and Rianna also looked well and Spring Brawler-

"Wait a minute."

Spring Brawler...

Spring Brawler.

Spring Brawler was sitting amongst the group like he had been an active participant in their conversations, with a cup of tea in his hands. In fact, he was actively sipping from the aforementioned teacup as Zhen Liu was sitting their with his eyes growing wider by the second.

...

’How...how is it that you seem to be involved with every awkward informational conversation when it comes to my family?’

[I don’t know, but I swear it’s because I opted to not develop a full core yet. Either the universe wants me to learn something deep or it’s messing with me for taking so long in my development.]

’I mean...we are formed by our personal experiences.’

[Indeed. Also, don’t expect me to explain anything to you in this instance,your father wanted to be the one to talk this time. Well, her and your father, who is significantly less scary than your mother all things considered.]

’Fair enough.’

...

Eventually, the silence finally became awkward enough, that Zhen Yan decided to break it.

"So...it looks like your sudden revival came with a lot more than just you being able to cultivate after all these years," he said in an attempt for levity. "Looks like you can create life."

"Yeah."

"Normally, you’d need two people for that."

"Snrk!"

"Holy..."

[Genetics be real.]

Once again, Zhen Liu was forced to wonder if his recent behavior was due to him being a transmigrated soul, or inherited quirks from his body. Either way, he had more important things to focus on.

"Terrible jokes aside," Zhen Liu said in an attempt to bring things back on track. "Exactly, how much did Jin Fang, Rianna and Spring Brawler tell you?"

"I’m not going to say ’everything’, since I don’t think even you know what’s going with yourself exactly."

"Harsh, but true."

"But enough to know that the clan’s recent string of good fortune may have had a thing or three involving you and the...kaijin? That’s the term?"

"Yup."

"Yes, Elder Zhen Yan."

[If we had alternate names, I don’t know them.]

"Right."

"O-oh."

Zhen Liu was quiet, as he had no idea on how to progress this conversation without digging himself into a hole or possibly incurring some lifechanging [Wrath]...but he didn’t need to do.

Instead, as Zhen Liu sat there, looking awkward as all hell, his father came over and simply rubbed his head, in the manner most parents do when comforting their children.

"It’s fine, son. I understand why you kept this a secret."

"You...you do?"

"Well, I’m a little annoyed, but it’d be hypocritical of me to scold you for keeping secrets when your mother and I have plenty of our own."

"Ominous."

"Are you referring to-"

"The being responsible for why I was able to meet her in the first place? Yup."

"Ah."

Zhen Yan proceeded to express his paternal love via head patting for a few more seconds before finally stopping and helping his son get to his feet.

"Alright, that’s enough of that. Come on, everybody. It’s time to meet up with the others."

"Okay...wait, others?"

"The rest of our clan, my boy. They didn’t bail despite the orders. Well, they did, but then they came back."

"Seriously?! What about Jinju Ren, grandfather and Hermit Zhong Wei? Weren’t they injured?"

"Well..."

Apparently, a lot had happened when Zhen Liu was taken out of commission for a full hour.

Thanks in part to the kaijin helping out in his stead.

______During that aforementioned hour...___

[Arachnidame? Lacerage? Are you guys in the compound?]

[Always, it’s my job.]

[Just finished processing a bunch of boar corpses. Why?]

[We have an issue, well, an emergency, really.]

[Why? What happened?]

...

"HOLY SHIT! WHY ARE THERE-"

"Cool it! The apes are with us."

"Gentle man, gentle!"

"They’re trying!"

The Zhen Clan knew full well that the patriarch, the elders and their scions were planning to use this day to do a raid on the wandering ruins that had suddenly appeared on their territory, so they weren’t too shocked about them suddenly appearing from the doorway.

What did send them into a shocked panic was the sight of their patriarch being lugged around by a pair of aether beast apes while being stuck inside of some kind of parasitic tree.

Thankfully, they weren’t panicking for too long.

"Make way please, make way."

"Miss Aranea!"

"Move it!"

"Miss Lacerage!"

The Zhen Clan elders were a touch surprised that Miss Aranea and Miss Lucille had just so happened to arrive at their location as they were leaving the ruins with their father and guest in tow, but they didn’t really care to think about why this was the case.

Medical emergencies tend to trump mysteries, after all.

That stated, they weren’t going to be the ones taking lead for this particular emergency.

That honor went to Zhen Jin.

"Thank the heavens you two are here," Zhen Jin said once he saw the two secretaries of the clan.

As the Zhen Clan’s lead in regards to aether plants and aether plant beasts, he was the only one qualified to treat the [Parasitic Wyrmwood] that was sapping his father’s aether as they speak. Which meant, he knew when he didn’t have the exact expertise to do this shit properly.

Not without help at least.

"Miss Aranea, can you arrange an empty space large enough to hold both of these trees?"

"The training arenas should be empty right now."

"Perfect, but also," Zhen Jin trailed off as he used his aether and a piece of paper to whip up a list of medical ingredients. "Get two of everything on this list and bring it to the arena as quick as you can, or arrange some servants to acquire the items from the market if we don’t have it in the storeroom."

"Of course."

"Miss Lucille, you’re very good at cutting things, correct?"

"You want me to slice out the patriarch and the hermit from these trees?," Lucille asked while slicing Aeroqii aether gathered around her hand.

"I do, but not now. I’ll need you in the arena."

"Got it."

"Now then, to the arena!"

"Yes!"

Everything appeared to be going smoothly for the Zhen Clan in their task to restore their patriarch and guest to good health.

No unexpected issues, no unfortunate timings and no missing components appeared to ruin their momentum in the slightest.

In fact, everything was going so smoothly that from an outside perspective, it almost looked...preordained.

...

"Huh..."

"Hmmm? What’s up?"

"Nothing, it’s just...didn’t Miss Aranea ask everyone to clear out the arena because of some kind of emergency?"

"Uh...yeah, she did. Said something about somebody vomiting all over the equipment and needing to clean it because it was cultivation related vomit. That shit never cleans off right."

"Yeah, so why are the elders using it for a medical treatment?"

"I don’t know."

...

"Excuse me!"

"Sorry!"

"Whoa! What’s with the basket?"

"Apparently the elders are in need of Alabaster Poppy Flowers and a Azure Dogwood branch for some kind of medical procedure."

"Wait, weren’t you just tasked to go buy those things like...twenty minutes ago."

"Yeah, and I just got back too! Great timing, right?"

"Right..."

...

[Damn, talk about perfect timing.]

[I know, right? I do love it when things go like clockwork.]

[Yeah, about that spider-bitch, are you sure you aren’t playing this a little fast and loose? I mean, coincidences are one thing, acting upon sensitive information in real time is a whole other thing. You don’t think any of the Zhen Clan mortals are gonna notice this?]

[Probably not. I mean... we’ve been pretending to be a pair of mortal women for the better of several months now and nobody brought it up before. I’m pretty sure they just don’t care at this point.]

[Aight...]